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An enduring and controversial debate centers on whether there exist "two presidencies," that is, whether presidents exercise fundamentally greater influence over foreign than domestic affairs. This paper makes two contributions to understanding this issue and, by extension, presidential power more generally. First, we distill an institutional logic that both supports the two presidencies thesis and implies that Congress has incentives to delegate foreign policy powers to the president. Accordingly, the logic suggests that empirical analysis should incorporate these incentives. Our second contribution, then, is to test for the existence of two presidencies in a domain that Congress cannot delegate, budgetary appropriations, and a domain that explicitly incorporates delegation, agency creation. Consistent with expectations, we find presidents exercise considerably greater influence over foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I use the Bush Administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) scores—a numerical measure of federal program performance—to analyze the relationship between political appointees and management. I find that federal programs administered by politically appointed bureau chiefs get systematically lower PART evaluations than programs run by bureau chiefs drawn from the civil service. I find that career managers have more direct bureau experience and longer tenures, and these characteristics are significantly related to performance. Political appointees have higher education levels, more private or not-for-profit management experience, and more varied work experience than careerists but these characteristics are uncorrelated with performance. I conclude that reducing the number of appointees or increased sensitivity to appointee selection based upon certain background characteristics could improve federal bureau management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between bad weather and lower levels of voter turnout is widely espoused by media, political practitioners, and, perhaps, even political scientists. Yet, there is virtually no solid empirical evidence linking weather to voter participation. This paper provides an extensive test of the claim. We examine the effect of weather on voter turnout in 14 U.S. presidential elections. Using GIS interpolations, we employ meteorological data drawn from over 22,000 U.S. weather stations to provide election day estimates of rain and snow for each U.S. county. We find that, when compared to normal conditions, rain significantly reduces voter participation by a rate of just less than 1% per inch, while an inch of snowfall decreases turnout by almost .5%. Poor weather is also shown to benefit the Republican party's vote share. Indeed, the weather may have contributed to two Electoral College outcomes, the 1960 and 2000 presidential elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The requirements of presidential nomination and Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominees present two anomalies: under what circumstances can ideologically extreme nominees win confirmation and, given political polarization and the possibility of a filibuster, how are any nominees successful? This paper employs a simple unidimensional spatial model to explore these anomalies. The principal results show that little change in Court policy is possible with a single appointment, and this fact interacts with certain contexts to give the president a relatively free hand in choosing extreme nominees. Less firm conclusions are reached about the second anomaly, but the analysis sets the stage for further work on that aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the details of the discharge procedure in the House of Representatives and their implications for theories of legislative politics. While the discharge procedure is frequently cited as the tool by which committee obstruction within the House can be overcome, I argue that, under close examination, the procedure actually is far from purely majoritarian. Specifically, I argue that the details of the discharge procedure imply that the support of either the Speaker of the House or a majority of the Rules Committee is necessary to ensure floor consideration for a bill. Accordingly, in a de jure sense, the House's discharge procedure is irrelevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For too long, research on retrospective voting has fixated on how economic trends affect incumbents' electoral prospects in national and state elections. Hundreds of thousands of elections in the United States occur at the local level and have little to do with unemployment or inflation rates. This paper focuses on the most prevalent: school boards. Specifically, it examines whether voters hold school board members accountable for the performance of their schools. The 2000 elections reveal considerable evidence that voters evaluate school board members on the basis of student learning trends. During the 2002 and 2004 school board elections, however, when media (and by extension public) attention to testing and accountability systems drifted, measures of achievement did not influence incumbents' electoral fortunes. These findings, we suggest, raise important questions about both the scope conditions of retrospective voting models and the information voters rely upon when evaluating incumbents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of nineteenth-century voting behavior have focused on how economic variables influenced elections during this period. Employing underutilized individual-level data from the 1870s, this paper argues that such studies overstate the influence of economic variables upon electoral behavior. Specifically, Democratic voters principally cast ballots on the basis of economic issues and divisions, while Republicans were primarily concerned with religious and cultural issues. These results suggest that the Democratic and Republican parties attracted voters on the basis of different policy dimensions, indicating that both ethnocultural and economic considerations affected both political parties, albeit in divergent ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses individual-level data to examine the impact of unions on turnout and assesses the consequences of dramatic changes in union strength and in the composition of union membership since 1964 for the composition of the U.S. electorate. We first estimate individual-level models to test for the distinct effects of union membership and union strength on the probabilities of members and nonmembers voting and then test whether the effect of individual union membership and overall union strength varies across income levels. We find that unions increase turnout of both members and nonmembers. By simulating what turnout would be were union membership at its 1964 level, we show that the decline in union membership since 1964 has affected the aggregate turnout of both low- and middle-income individuals more than the aggregate turnout of high-income individuals. However, while class bias has increased as a consequence of the decline, the change is surprisingly small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to clarify Tocqueville's view that a political order premised on the primacy of individual reason over moral authority can be detrimental to genuine intellectual liberty. Beginning with Tocqueville's famous comment that Americans are Cartesians without having read Descartes, I compare Tocqueville's assessment of American intellectual life to Descartes' hopes for future political societies. I describe their disagreement about the effect that moral authority and rational individualism have on the development of the mind and locate its source in two competing theories of mind. This reveals a debate about our human needs with echoes in contemporary political discontent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents and investigates a prominent but little discussed pattern in U.S. politics, which is the decline of third-party electoral support over the past century. We find evidence consistent with the claim that electoral support for third parties—mainly left-wing third parties—declined because the Democratic Party co-opted the left-wing policy position beginning with the passage of the New Deal agenda. We note first that most of the third-party voting in the pre-New-Deal era was for left-wing third parties and that this declined sharply during the 1930s and 1940s. We then show that after the New Deal the Democratic Party's electoral support was higher in areas that had traditionally supported left-wing third parties. Contrary to some claims in the literature, we find little support for the hypothesis that the decline of third-party voting was immediately due to electoral reforms such as the introduction of direct primaries and the Australian ballot, except possibly in the south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics of the “imperial judiciary” have accused the United States Supreme Court of usurping authority from legislators and executives by creating new rights that are found nowhere in the text of the Constitution. In this paper, I use two case studies to argue that unenumerated rights can be reconciled with democratic values. First, the protection of aggressive palliative care in Washington v. Glucksberg (1997) exemplifies a consensus-building decision whereby the Court holds that a broadly accepted norm or practice has constitutional underpinnings. Second, the invalidations of durational residency requirements for welfare benefits in Shapiro v. Thompson (1969) and Saenz v. Roe (1999) represent broadened-access decisions in which the state is required to extend a benefit to an excluded group yet retains the authority to define the benefit's content. These types of decisions are compatible with democratic norms insofar as they do not disable elected representatives from performing their quintessential task: deciding what policy values the state should pursue and how it should purse them. My argument suggests that a focus on Roe v. Wade (1973) exaggerates the ambitions and consequences of judicial protection for unenumerated rights and overlooks how such protection may enhance democratic politics.Polity (2007) 39, 103–124. doi:10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300074 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the activities that happened in 2006 for the American Society of Naturalists. The executive meeting held June 23, 2006 emphasized on the success of the three-editor system and electronic papers of the society's publication. The business meeting of the society focused on the presentation of the anti-wedge document to the Joint Council, which establishes medium-term and long-term goals to defend and promote the teaching of evolutionary biology. The next meeting of the joint committee pointed on the support of the Joint Council to the anti-wedge document.

This paper examines the struggle between the legislative and judicial branches by focusing specifically on congressional influences on the behavior of federal judges. We argue that Congress may constrain individual judicial behavior by passing statutes containing detailed language. To test this thesis we borrow from the bureaucratic politics literature to introduce and test a new measure of statutory constraint. Using data from the U.S. Courts of Appeals we find that appellate court behavior is constrained significantly by statutory language, although this constraint is asymmetric across ideology. We discover substantial differences between Democratic and Republican appointees both in terms of statutory constraint and ideological voting. The data indicate judges appointed by Democratic presidents are constrained by statutory language in criminal cases. Similarly, Republican appointees are constrained by statutes in civil rights cases. Yet, neither Democrats nor Republicans are constrained in economic cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States is undergoing dramatic demographic change, primarily from immigration, and many of the new Latino immigrants are settling in the South. This paper examines hypotheses related to attitudes of Latino immigrants toward black Americans in a Southern city. The analyses are based on a survey of black, white, and Latino residents (n = 500). The results show, for the most part, Latino immigrants hold negative stereotypical views of blacks and feel that they have more in common with whites than with blacks. Yet, whites do not reciprocate in their feelings toward Latinos. Latinos’ negative attitudes toward blacks, however, are modulated by a sense of linked fate with other Latinos. This research is important because the South still contains the largest population of African Americans in the United States, and no section of the country has been more rigidly defined along a black-white racial divide. How these new Latino immigrants situate themselves vis-à-vis black Americans has profound implications for the social and political fabric of the South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some critics of the confirmation process for U.S. Supreme Court nominees have claimed that the contentiousness of the contemporary process has induced presidents to nominate lesser known figures of lesser merit to the High Court, rather than first-rate legal scholars of well known and likely controversial views. This dynamic has led, in the words of one commentator, to a “Court of mediocrity.” This paper tests that thesis by analyzing the results of a survey of constitutional law scholars on the overall “quality” of the Court's twentieth-century appointees. The results place none of the justices appointed since the late 1960s in the survey's highest category: “Excellent.” However, the results indicate that the recent justices are, as a whole, just as able as the average justice of earlier in the twentieth century. A majority of the recent justices score above the mean rating of their earlier twentieth-century predecessors at a statistically distinguishable level. Moreover, the discussion of the survey results shows that the conditions for the appointment of great justices are still present.Polity (2006) 38, 295–313. doi:10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300036 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have convincingly shown the close ties U.S. physicists had with the military during the Cold War and have raised the question of whether this alliance affected the content of physics. Some have asserted that it distorted physics, shifting attention from fundamental problems to devices. Yet the papers of physicists in quantum electronics and quantum optics, fields that have been exemplary for those who hold the distortion thesis, show that the same scientists who worked on military devices simultaneously pursued fundamental and foundational topics. This essay examines one such physicist, Marlan O. Scully, with attention to both his extensive foundational studies and the way in which his applied and basic researches played off each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context matters, but which context? We live in more than one context; for example, the cities in which we reside may differ dramatically from the neighborhoods we call home. When testing the racial-threat hypothesis, previous research has focused upon a single context, usually in isolation from other, potentially competing contexts. This paper argues that racial context is complicated for whites, and that multiple contexts need to be considered to assess racial threats effectively. Using individual evaluations of neighborhood and city, I show that contexts interact in complicated, surprising, and important ways. I find that the presence of African Americans does have a negative effect upon white attitudes, but that the effect can be misleading if examined in isolation. Scholars need to carefully consider multiple contexts when examining attitudes, and individuals who inhabit incongruent—that is, conflicting— contexts tell an interesting story about race and residence in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of the U.S. federal budget allocation to the states. Departing from the existing literature that gives prominence to Congress, we carry on an empirical investigation on the impact of presidents during the period 1982–2000. Our findings suggest that federal budget allocation is affected by presidential politics. States that heavily supported the incumbent president in past presidential elections tend to receive more funds, while marginal and swing states are not rewarded. Party affiliation also matters since states whose governor belong to the same party of the president receive more federal funds, while states opposing the president's party in Congressional elections are penalized. These results show that presidents are engaged in tactical distribution of federal funds and also provide good evidence in support of partisan theories of budget allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political science has been relatively silent about family, associating it with social welfare policy, gender, or the private sphere. However, family is also an important part of day-to-day politics, and legislators use family to accomplish a wide range of policy goals. This paper provides a theoretical framework for thinking about family as a part of the policy process that justifies policy positions, administers goods and services, and determines eligibility. I test the theoretical framework by evaluating where and how family is used in the policy process with a quantitative analysis of congressional speeches, the US. code, and federal regulations. Finally, a brief look at tax policy in the 1990s shows how family can be incorporated into political research. Ultimately, political actors use concepts of family across a broad spectrum of policy areas, including those not traditionally thought of as ‘family oriented,’ suggesting a number of important implications and research questions for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of employment status on voting by formally modeling the effect of partisan government on workers’ economic interests. These interests are determined by model workers’ labor supply decisions, which are conditioned on their expected wage, unemployment benefits, and the probability of receiving a job offer or being laid off. Both probabilities are influenced by the party in power. The solution to the model implies that, relative to the employed, the higher the education level, the income, and the unemployment benefits of the unemployed the less likely they are to vote for the party associated with higher growth. The unemployment rate has the same impact. These hypotheses are successfully tested on NES 1972–2000 U.S. presidential elections data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of U.S. foreign aid have firmly established that foreign policy and domestic considerations strongly influence allocations of military and economic development assistance. Uncharted, however, is the question of similar influences on U.S. humanitarian aid. Analyzing U.S. foreign disaster assistance data from 1964 through 1995, this paper concludes that foreign policy and domestic factors not only influence disaster assistance allocations but that they are the overriding determinant. This impact is, however, somewhat differential: the initial“yes/no” decision to grant disaster assistance is markedly political, but the subsequent“how much” decision is also not devoid of political considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common critique of school choice is that it will have the practical effect of further increasing racial and ethnic segregation in American education. Although most survey evidence indicates that the highest priority of parents in choosing schools is academic quality, with the race and ethnic composition of the student body being much less important, many critics doubt that private preferences are being publicly revealed. In this paper, we use an experimental design embedded in a survey to obtain an alternative measure of educational quality and racial diversity as considerations for household school choice. While both academic quality and race/ethnic diversity had an effect on preferences, academic quality was a more important predictor. We then examined the relationship between preference and actual choice outcomes. Race-related opinions were nonpredictive of outcomes, but a stress on high test scores by parents predicted school choice among students who are not“at risk.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the determinants and consequences of Latino political representation in the field of K-12 education. The first task is to examine the association between Latino population and the Latino presence on school boards. We then investigate if Latino representation is affected by the electoral structure of school boards, as scholars have reached differing conclusions on whether at-large and ward systems hinder or enhance minority descriptive representation. The next step examines the consequences of Latino representation, specifically whether board membership is associated with the share of Latino school administrators and teachers. The regression results show that Latino population positively affects Latino board representation, but that at-large systems hinder descriptive representation. The primary determinant of Latino administrators is Latino school board membership, and the primary determinant of Latino teachers is Latino administrators. In sum, at-large elections negatively influence Latino educational representation, which produces a ripple effect that ultimately reduces the share of Latino teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the growing empirical literature on filibusters by examining the factors that are associated with individual-level filibustering behavior. We focus particularly on the behavior of senators in the latter part of their careers, using impending retirement as analytical leverage to determine whether decisions to engage or not in dilatory parliamentary practices are driven more by narrowly drawn considerations of instrumental utility or by compliance with institutional norms of deference and cooperation. Using data from 1975 to 1993 and employing multivariate models that allow us to control for other relevant factors, we find only limited support for a narrowly rational model of Senate “followership.” In the course of our enquiry, we clarify the notion of legislative norms, integrate our study with recent interdisciplinary scholarship on the evolution of cooperative behavior and consider how leadership can be exercised in environments largely bereft of formal leadership resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results of a phonological and phonetic study of stress in Chickasaw, a Muskogean language spoken in south central Oklahoma. Three degrees of stress are differentiated acoustically, with primary stressed vowels having the highest f0 and greatest duration and intensity, unstressed vowels having the lowest f0 and shortest duration and intensity, and secondary stressed vowels displaying intermediate f0, duration, and intensity values. Vowel quality differences and segmental lenition processes also are diagnostic for stress. The location of stress is phonologically predictable, falling on word-final syllables, heavy (CVC and CVV) syllables, and on the second in a sequence of light (CV) syllables. Short vowels in nonfinal open syllables are made heavy through a process of rhythmic vowel lengthening. Primary stress is sensitive to a further weight distinction, which treats CVV as heavier than both CV and CVC. In words lacking a CVV syllable, stress falls on the final syllable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petrocik's theory of issue ownership maintains that candidates use campaigns to strategically emphasize issues on which their parties are perceived as more competent; that, in essence, issue agendas have partisan effects on electoral outcomes. This research reexamines the theory of issue ownership using public opinion data from ten Senate races in 1998. While findings from this research largely support the issue ownership hypothesis, they also point to new insights. In particular, there is evidence that candidate records of innovation and issue attentiveness to opposing party issues can undermine the traditional party basis of the vote. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this paper finds that candidates are able to outflank their opponents on issues typically owned by the opposing party if their personal legislative records warrant it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaic, deep-sea cephalopod Vampyroteuthis infernalis occurs in dark, oxygen-poor waters below 600 m off Monterey Bay, California. Living specimens, collected gently with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and quickly transported to a laboratory ashore, have revealed two hitherto undescribed means of bioluminescent expression for the species. In the first, light is produced by a new type of organ located at the tips of all eight arms. In the second, a viscous fluid containing microscopic luminous particles is released from the arm tips to form a glowing cloud around the animal. Both modes of light production are apparently linked to anti-predation strategies. Use of the tip-lights is readily educed by contact stimuli, while fluid expulsion has a much higher triggering threshold. Coelenterazine and luciferase are the chemical precursors of light production. This paper presents observations on the structure and operation of the arm-tip light organs, the character of the luminous cloud, and how the light they produce is incorporated into behavioral patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most political scientists have studied the impact of economic conditions on U.S. presidential elections after World War II and argued that the economy matters in these elections because government has some "control" over the economy. Since government authority over the economy grew substantially between 1932 and 1946, political scientists have focused their attention on the elections in the post World War II era. This growth in government authority then gives voters a link between government action and macroeconomic performance. However, a growing number of political scientists have shown that economic conditions also influenced elections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—well before the growth in government authority between 1932 and 1946. In this paper I discuss why economic conditions also affected presidential elections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I argue that government economic policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did affect important blocs of voters—specifically farmers and industrial workers—albeit in different ways than government policy affects voters today. This gave voters a way to link economic performance with government policies. I also show that politicians regularly campaigned on the state of the economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Newspaper coverage of the 1884 campaign suggests that economic conditions and issues were regularly used as campaign ammunition by both Democrats and Republicans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines agency mortality between 1946 and 1997 and argues that, contrary to popular belief, agencies are not immortal. Rather, agencies face significant risks of termination, particularly due to political turnover. When an agency's opponents gain power, the hazards of agency mortality increase. Principal among the findings of this paper are that 62% of agencies created since 1946 have been terminated and that political turnover is one of the primary causes of termination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a series of questions related to the survival of disagreement among interdependent citizens during an election campaign. Do campaign-stimulated processes of collective deliberation result in the elimination of disagreement within networks of social communication? If not, what are the factors that sustain political heterogeneity and disagreement? And what are the consequences of political heterogeneity within these communication networks for patterns of political influence between and among citizens? Finally, in what manner is the influence of one citizen on another conditioned by the structure of communication networks and the distribution of preferences in the remainder of these networks? We address these questions based on a study of electoral dynamics in the 1996 presidential campaign as it took place in the Indianapolis and St. Louis metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes papers of silver designer Charles Osborne, highlighting the importance of silver and silver designers in the U.S. during the nineteenth century. Silver production in the early nineteenth century; Life history of Osborne; Awards received by Osborne as silver designer.

This paper addresses a very important question for media researchers, political campaigners, and democratic theorists alike: Does negative campaigning demobilize the electorate? Using both aggregate-and individual-level turnout data and evidence on the nature or "tone" of virtually every U.S. Senate campaign between 1988 and 1998, we find that campaign negativism has a curvilinear effect on turnout, with most observed levels of negativism actually stimulating turnout. Only at extremely high levels does negativism in political campaigns generally suppress turnout. We find no consistent evidence that person-based criticisms of the opponent have any different effect than policy-based criticisms. However, we do find support for the hypothesis that partisans tend to be stimulated by campaign negativism while independents are more likely to be discouraged by such campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a research paper which constructed a state cost of living (COL) index for the years 1960 to 1995 in each continental American state based on McMahon's approach. Previous measure of state cost of living; Reliability and validity tests for the COL; Importance of a deflator; Discussion and conclusion.

Provides information on the 101st Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America which was held in Dallas, Texas from December 27 to 30, 2000. Awardees at the event; Officers who were elected to the Institute's Governing Board; Abstracts of the research papers at the meeting.

This article presents the author's views on a paper related to the abundant sources of imagery in the archaeological record by Rosemary A. Joyce, an American anthropologist. The author appreciates Joyace's paper saying it shows that an archaeology of symbolism can be illuminating when it stimulates interests in establishing types and defining styles. According to the author, Joyce holds that the object of symbolic archeology is the mutual definition of motifs and conventions.

Presents information on a paper which relates to the conceptual and linguistic perplexities in works of American biblical theologians in the midcentury, by Langdon Gilkey, a perspective member of the University of Chicago faculty. Information on the philosophical analysis of `heilsgeschichtlich' which is defined as `salvation-history' theology; Acceptance of the scientific rationality and metaphysical idealism of theology.

In May, 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Jackson, Michigan, school district's policy of protecting minority teachers during periods of mandatory layoffs. This paper models the implications of this decision in an attempt to project its likely impact on black representation in the educational workforce. The results suggest that under most plausible future conditions the decision's impact should be negligible, due largely to the fact that blacks have so few recent gains to protect. On the other hand, the analysis uncovers other trends that may have significant future impacts on black representation among public school teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its decision of Gaffney v Cummings, the Supreme Court legitimized a Connecticut districting scheme which purposefully was designed to yield rough proportionality between a party's share of the total vote and its share of legislative seats This paper examines the method used by the state's attorney, Robert Dixon, to show that the scheme was fair, and was not an "invidious gerrymander", proposes an alternative method for detecting a biased districting scheme, and looks at Connecticut legislative election outcomes in the 1970s to see whether or not Dixon's standards of fairness were realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended as a follow-up to Marshall Sahlins's "The Sadness of Sweetness: The Native Anthropology of Western Cosmology" (1996). It isolates one field of practical action—marketing and consumer behavior—to explore the ways in which the implicit theory of needs that Sahlins elucidates is embedded in marketplace behavior, broadly defined, in the United States. Supported by an ethnographic illustration, it hypothesizes the process whereby professional marketers and consumers, via their practical disposition toward each other in the mutually constituted sociocultural field of the "market," help perpetuate the Western cosmological duality of suffering and salvation. A critique of three writers on the subject of marketing and consumer behavior, Lefebvre, Baudrillard, and Bourdieu, forms the basis for a theory of cultural construction of the market and of consumer identities within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to the comments on the paper "What the New Archaeology Has Accomplished," by Richard A. Watson in this issue. It is clarified that common sense is not societally or culturally determined. He also concurs that archaeologists should be concerned with theory. The author also explains that there can be no separate theory of archaeology.

The article presents information related to fellowships, calls for papers, upcoming special issues, and new journals published in the U.S. The International Federation of University Women offers a limited number of fellowships and grants to women graduates for advanced research, study, and training. The next competition will offer fellowships and grants for the 200 5-6 academic year. Teachers College Record announces a call for papers for a special issue on ethnicity, race, gender, class, and youths' development. This issue will feature papers reporting on original research regarding the development of youths, particularly in urban contexts. The National Sexuality Resource Center (NSRC), with funds from the Ford Foundation, is committed to generating a dialogue between academics and community advocates. The goal of the center is to strengthen informed responses to critical sexual and social issues.

The article comments on the paper "What the New Archaeology Has Accomplished," by Richard A. Watson in this issue. The paper simply reaffirms concepts and characteristics already known from Watson's previous writings. However, while it claims to offer a retrospective evaluation of the American New Archaeology movement, it mostly focuses on the current and future shape of archaeological thinking.

The article comments on the paper "What the New Archaeology Has Accomplished," by Richard A. Watson in this issue. It is pointed out that Watson failed to live up to his promise of providing a survey of the concrete knowledge about prehistoric times accomplished since the 1960s by the followers of the New Archaeology. Nevertheless, the paper offers fresh knowledge but it should be pointed out that, contrary to Watson's joke, archaeology is not boring at all.

The article comments on the paper "What the New Archaeology Has Accomplished," by Richard A. Watson in this issue. The author points out that while he is in substantial agreement with Watson on the significance of scientific archaeology, he differs strongly with him on what comprises science. A more encompassing definition that includes both processual and postprocessual programs is needed.

The article comments on the paper "What the New Archaeology Has Accomplished," by Richard A. Watson in this issue. It is pointed out that contrary of Watson's view, the Hempelian deductive-nomological model of explanation is not the same as Popper's model of hypothetico-deductive confirmation of hypotheses. However, it is true that archaeology is threatened by descriptivism, relativism and idiographicism.

The article comments on the paper "What the New Archaeology Has Accomplished," by Richard A. Watson in this issue. Watson is commended for doing an excellent work on placing the arguments of modern skeptics in archaeology within their historical framework. Agreements or disagreements are presented for the various proposals of Watson that archaeologists might follow in the pursuit of their endeavors.

The article announces that the Wenner-Gren Foundation will start a new biannual series of supplements to publish papers resulting from Wenner-Gren sponsored symposia in the U.S. on October 2010. The Foundation believes that open-access publication in "Current Anthropology" is the best way of nurturing new approaches in anthropology and the highest-quality research in the field. It encourages anthropologists to share their ideas at any stage of development.

This article presents the author's views on a paper related to the sources of imagery in the archaeological record by Rosemary A. Joyce, an American anthropologist. The article author holds that Joyce's article presents an important insight into the possible meanings of prehistoric Central American figural representations. The author appreciates Joyce's discussion on material culture.

The article comments on the paper "What the New Archaeology Has Accomplished," by Richard A. Watson in this issue. The author questions Watson's view that archaeologists suggest and test hypotheses established on the basis of common sense and scientific knowledge obtained from other sciences. It is also pointed out that Watson considers only hypotheses that can be tested, without looking into their various levels and backgrounds.